UK-listed Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) today completed its US$1.85bn acquisition of Caribbean cableco Columbus International.
CWC had agreed the purchase – from Clearwater Holdings (Barbados) Limited, CVBI Holdings (Barbados) Inc., Columbus…
UK-listed Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) today completed its US$1.85bn acquisition of Caribbean cableco Columbus International.
CWC had agreed the purchase – from Clearwater Holdings (Barbados) Limited, CVBI Holdings (Barbados) Inc., Columbus Holding LLC, Brendan Paddick and others – on 6 November.
To gain clearance from the Trinidad & Tobago telecoms watchdog, CWC last week agreed to divest its 49% stake in national incumbent TSTT within 18 months.
Also last week, Barbados’ Fair Trading Commission (FTC), on the condition that CWC offloaded “the overlapping, duplicate elements of the combined fibre network in Barbados.”
CWC CEO Phil Bentley, described this as “a transformational deal…Columbus Communications is an outstanding business; not only do we add significant fibre optic submarine backhaul and terrestrial broadband and TV capability to our leading mobile and legacy copper networks in The Caribbean, but our complementary B2B divisions can now offer geographical focus and a wider product offering in the faster-growing Latin American markets.”
Columbus, which trades as Flow, is present in Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and Curacao. It trades as Karib Cable in Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines and Antigua & Barbuda.
Evercore advised CWC, while JPMorgan provided debt financing in the form of a US$460m senior secured two-year bridge facility, a US$300m senior unsecured two-year bridge facility, a US$404m senior secured two-year bridge facility, a US$1.26bn senior unsecured on-year bridge facility and a US$500 senior secured revolving credit facility.
Columbus is advised by Citigroup, JPMorgan and RBC Capital.
